African Farmers Pawns in Global Economics

While
the world focuses on climate change negotiations in Copenhagen this
month, many involved in issues of global survival are concerned about
another situation developing out of the November World Food Security
Summit held in Rome.

The United Nations Food &
Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that, over the past three
years, almost US$1 billion dollars has been spent by foreign
governments and corporations on the purchase of farmland in Africa,
accounting for something in the range of 20 million hectares.

This
move, particularly on the part of Asian and Middle Eastern governments
– Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and China being most prominent – has
been prompted by the spike in staple food prices that hit the globe in
2007-08, creating hunger and political instability in both poorer and
wealthier countries.

Rising food prices this decade,
coupled with the global economic recession, have added more than 100
million people to the official ranks of the hungry, bringing that total
to over one billion – almost one-sixth of the world’s population.

While states such as Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia
control 45% of the world’s oil, they can no longer rely on existing
markets, regionally or internationally, to feed their populations.

By 2050, it is projected that the world’s population will have reached nine billion (almost 50% higher than it is today).

Thus, many changes will have to be made in how we feed the globe, or the system – already teetering, will fail.

Exacerbating
this dilemma are factors such as climate change. Previously
abundant food production areas are now subject to desertification,
rising temperatures and frequent storm systems.

As
wealthier governments move to insure their food supply, formerly
domestic food production lands in Africa (particularly in East Africa)
are leased or purchased for bio-fuel development or export
agriculture. Questions then arise about what mutual benefit
African countries and their farmers can see in this potentially
neo-colonial situation.

Firstly, they point out that African
countries at independence in the 1960s and ’70s were self-sufficient in
food production and indeed were exporters.

Now, rural
people in these same countries have become poorer, cannot feed their
communities, and are subject to losing their lands and relocating to
urban slums (or working their former lands as low paid labour).

As
well, bio-fuels being grown on their land and produce being exported
after production in their countries will not feed them. That
production is destined for European, Middle Eastern and Asian vehicles
and dinner tables.

What exists now is a debate: Will these
purchases of land help to create wealth and employment in African
countries, or is this just a new form of colonialism and
feudalism?

How is this different from the situations
where countries and corporations, in the past and still today, have
“invested” in the development (or exploitation) of other natural
resources, from oil and diamonds, to rubber, coffee and sugar?

It is the old and on-going debate, but now land would appear to be the commodity in question.

Many
are urging that a Code of Conduct be put in place as quickly as
possible, so that African farmers retain their rights and their
wealth.

Asian and Gulf countries want to be able to access food directly, and thus own and control “off-shore” lands.

What does this mean for the people living there now?

What
must be assured is that Africans, who are the most vulnerable people on
Earth to climate change, conflict and poverty, will be able to access
the food that they need and be compensated for any foreign intervention
in their economy, society and environment.

How would Canadian
farmers and consumers feel if millions of acres of our land were bought
up by foreign interests for export back to their countries?

We would either ban such as practice, or at least ensure that our own interests were not put at risk.

While
some on the international stage are promoting the idea of a ban on what
they call a “land grab”, others are more circumspect, saying that with
a Code of Conduct, decisions can be made on a case by case basis.

Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations and
now head of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in African (AGRA), said
in Rome that “governments must consult widely with their farming
population before signing deals that may increase poverty”.

It would appear that farmers are yet again pawns in the global food chess game.

One
remedy for this situation is for rural and agricultural people to
determine what is in their best interests and how power can be shared
between those who produce our foods and those “buy” them.